The official trailer for Diane’s latest film, Special Forces has been released. In the film, Diane plays a French journalist kidnapped by the kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan. No US release date has yet been set.

In Special Forces Diane Kruger plays a French journalist kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Shot in Tajikistan, the French-language role is another that displays the German-born star’s penchant for changing nationalities, accents and languages. Last time out, in the action thriller Unknown, the 35-year-old played a Bosnian taxi driver. Also on her increasingly illustrious CV are turns as a German actress spying for the British in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, and speaking German in the 2005 First World War hit Joyeux Noel She played a Chicago resident in Wicker Park and got her big break playing Helen opposite Brad Pitt in Troy.

“I always said that was my big dream as an actor, to be between two chairs,” she says about her jump from studio films to more independent fare. “I never wanted to be typecast as a nationality. This does have the result of consistently having to do more work for a role, to be able to speak without an accent in English, to be able to speak with all different kinds of accents playing other nationalities or when I speak in French or German.”

There is though, one accent the actress admits that she is afraid to try: “Scottish, oh my god, that would be hard.” She adds, in English that betrays no hint of her German roots: “It’s all a matter of rehearsal. You can learn any accent you want. It’s a fascinating thing.” Her skill with accents doesn’t extend to impressions, though. “I’m not a very good impersonator, my friends maybe, but not famous people. I can do Karl very well, Karl Lagerfeld, because he speaks the same in every language.”

She doesn’t give a rendition of her Lagerfeld, sadly but adds: “He’s like my stepfather, I love Karl. He’s the funniest person I know. He’s a big inspiration actually.”

Kruger got to know Lagerfeld after she began modelling in Paris, aged 15. Her move to the French capital as a teenager came after a tumultuous couple of years. Born in the tiny hamlet of Algermissen, near Hanover, her parents divorced when she was 13. Her father worked as a cinema projectionist and her mother in a bank. She stayed with her mother, pursuing a career in ballet, but after auditioning for the Royal Ballet in London an injury put paid to her dancing dreams.

“From my modelling days, I have relationships with all these people and it’s kind of a cool thing that I still do that as well. It’s better these days as I now have more of a say in what I do and so I don’t sign with people that I don’t stand behind… It’s very cool to be the face of a perfume, that’s a very flattering thing. When Calvin Klein asked me to be the face of a perfume called Beauty I was like, ‘who are you kidding?’ when they told me the name. I was thinking people are going to say, ‘who does she think she is from Helen of Troy to Beauty?’ Then with all the work I’ve done for cosmetics companies too it becomes very global.”

She prefers to work on campaigns for products that are aimed at the High Street: “I like the idea of accessibility, coming from a lower-middle-class background myself, I feel like beauty and products should be accessible to all women over the world.”

This seems to sum up Kruger. From afar and in magazines, she seems to belong to a high-end glamorous, unobtainable world, but she really is just one of the girls. (Source)

Diane Kruger (“Inglourious Basterds”) will topline “Special Forces,” a $12.6-million Afghanistan-set kidnap drama. Kruger will play a French journo kidnapped by the Taliban. Djimon Hounsou, Denis Menochet, Benoit Magimel, Raphael Personnaz (who appears in competition player “The Princess of Montpensier”) also star. Pic will be directed by Stephane Rybojad.

Produced by StudioCanal and Easy Company’s Thierry Marro and Benoit Ponsaille, “Forces” is in pre-production. The film, which will be shot with the help of the French army, is in the vein of “Black Hawk Down,” said StudioCanal chairman-CEO Olivier Courson.

Meanwhile, StudioCanal is producing serial-killer thriller “Prey,” directed by Eric Valette. The French helmer has just wrapped production on “Hunter,” a 3D English-language horror pic. Budgeted around $12.6 million, “Prey” will star French thesps Andre Dussollier and Albert Dupontel. Both “Special Forces” and “Prey” are part of a push by StudioCanal into upscale French genre fare.

Optimum Releasing and Kinowelt, which are StudioCanal subsidiaries, have taken U.K. and German rights respectively to “The Prey,” and “Special Forces.”

“There’s a real international appetite for high-quality French films, which is shown by the interest of our subsidiaries,” said Courson.

Optimum and Kinowelt usually take two or three of StudioCanal’s French movies a year. Both pics will see theatrical openings. StudioCanal’s competition players, “Outside the Law” and “The Princess of Montpensier,” will be released by Optimum and Kinowelt. (Source)